With two months until the official filing deadline for the 2014 Democratic primary, six Dallas County prosecutors are already seeking felony court judicial benches.

Five will face incumbent Democrats who took office in 2007, while one will face a defense attorney after a Democratic judge resigned to run for district attorney as a Republican.

A look at the races:

265th District Court

Jennifer Bennett has been at the district attorney’s office for 13 years. She is challenging state District Judge Mark Stoltz, a former public defender.

Bennett said she is running because of the high number of defendants in jail awaiting trial. She said the 265th is inefficient. “That affects the defendants because they can’t get their day in court. That affects victims of crimes, that affect all of us,” Bennett said.

Stoltz said he is baffled by Bennett’s reasoning. “In seven years on the bench, no one from the DA’s office has ever come to me and said, ‘Judge, you’ve got too many defendants in jail,’” Stoltz said. “I’m strict. If you’re on bond for [a third] DWI and drink, I pull your bond. If you are on bond for domestic violence and [have] any contact with the victim, you are going to jail.”

282nd District Court

Amber Givens has been with the DA’s office since 2012. She is challenging state District Judge Andy Chatham, who won the bench after stints as a private attorney and public defender.

Givens said defendants are waiting too long for court dates in this court.

Chatham said he has a “simple judicial philosophy: Be fair to each side, follow the law, send dangerous criminals to prison, help those on probation rebuild their lives, and keep costs low.

“The monsters in our community have received lengthy prison sentences, and we have had phenomenal success stories from many of those put on probation.”

283rd District Court

Justin Lord, a chief felony prosecutor, has worked for the DA’s office since 2001. He is challenging state District Judge Rick Magnis, a former public defender.

Lord cited a high number of people awaiting trial in jail and the high costs of running the court as his reasons for challenging Magnis, the presiding judge for the felony courts.

“These delays in getting cases to court are also stressful on defendants’ friends and family members who anxiously await the outcome of the case. Additionally, victims of crime deserve to have their cases heard expeditiously, and the high number of defendants on the 283rd jail chain means justice is delayed for crime victims,” Lord said.

Magnis said he sped up the rate at which child abuse cases are tried and developed a fairer method of appointing attorneys that kept the county from losing grant money.

Magnis is also set to begin a program that requires intense supervision for defendants granted probation in family violence cases. He is working with local shelters, Dallas police, county probation and the DA’s office “to streamline the disposition of intimate partner violence cases involving high risk offenders.”

291st District Court

There is no incumbent in this race after Susan Hawk resigned last month to campaign for district attorney. Stephanie Mitchell joined the DA’s office in 2008. She will face defense attorney and former public defender Susan Anderson.

Mitchell said the 291st’s program for mentally ill offenders made the court appealing to her because she had an uncle who battled mental illness and drug addiction. Mitchell said the court needs more accountability and jury trials. “I’ve accomplished as much as I can as a prosecutor,” she said.

Anderson, an attorney for 18 years, said “judges should punish those who need to be punished, rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated and have the wisdom to know what to do and when. That wisdom comes from legal experience in the courtroom and life experience out of it.”

292nd District Court

Brandon Birmingham, a chief felony prosecutor who joined the DA’s office in 2002, began running against state District Judge Larry Mitchell after the judge’s law license was put on probation by the State Bar of Texas for not communicating with a client when Mitchell was in private practice.

“I saw that changes should be made in that court — both in terms of efficiency and ethics,” Birmingham said. “I believe my experience, my record, and work ethic make me the clear choice.”

Mitchell said his problems with the State Bar — four misconduct cases in 34 years as an attorney — are “in my past.” Mitchell said none of the reprimands were about the quality of his work, just his communication skills.

“I want to be judged by the job I’m doing on bench,” Mitchell said. “To really determine how a judge is doing, you need to know if a judge is there and the judge knows about the law and treats both sides fairly.”

204th District Court

The most-watched and probably the most contentious judicial race in the 2014 Dallas County Democratic primary could be prosecutor Tammy Kemp’s challenge to Judge Lena Levario for 204th District Court.

Kemp is one of six known prosecutors seeking a felony court bench. Levario is the judge who earlier this year held Kemp’s boss, District Attorney Craig Watkins, in contempt for refusing to testify at a hearing where Watkins was accused of prosecutorial misconduct. Watkins was later acquitted but has since launched a grand jury investigation into whether Levario’s decision was improperly influenced by other judges.

Candidates can’t officially file to run for office for another month. But Levario and Kemp are already trading jabs about each other’s legal fitness.

Levario points to a 2012 ruling by another state district judge that Kemp withheld evidence during the trial of a woman convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The ruling said Kemp did not disclose to the defense before the trial that in a 911 recording, a witness said the suspect was a black male. The defendant was a black female. The ruling also found Kemp did not disclose that the witness picked someone else out of a lineup before choosing the defendant, Telisa Blackman.

The other judge ruled that Kemp denied Blackman a fair trial and that jurors may have reached a different decision with the other evidence.

But the Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed and said the outcome would not have changed the verdict if the evidence had been disclosed.

“A person that has committed such prosecutorial misconduct should not be a lawyer,” Levario said. “She should not be a prosecutor. And, she definitely should not be a judge.”

Kemp, who is in her second stint as a Dallas County prosecutor, said she offers “no apologies for seeking justice for our county’s most vulnerable victims,” adding that Levario was trying to “substitute her flawed judgment” for the appellate court’s decision.

Kemp said the appellate court has reversed rulings by Levario when the judge was “helping out” defendants. Kemp cited Levario’s 2009 ruling that held the state’s continuous sexual assault of a child statute unconstitutional as an example of “one of the many cases in which the current judge has had to be reversed by an appellate court.”

Levario, who first served on the bench from 1993 to 1995, was elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. She said no one should get “the impression that I am a softy with criminals … I have a reputation for being pretty tough with defendants.”